Recipes

This recipe for Smoked Pigeon Breast and Sussex Cherry Salad comes from Due South in Brighton. They say "Cooking your own smoked food at home is easier than you may think. You can smoke food indoors or outdoors & the great thing about cooking with smoke is the experimentation with different flavours. With Sussex cherries at their finest right now, smoking these already fabulous fruits adds an exciting new dimension.

"You can use most things to smoke – tea, coffee, herbs, wood chippings all create unique flavours but a good starting point is rice - it has no taste of its own, smokes really well & you can flavour it with whatever takes your fancy!"

Basic Smoking Technique

You will need –

    * 1 old pan
    * Tinfoil
    * 100g rice
    * 2 star anise
    * ½ tsp coriander seeds
    * ½ tsp black peppercorns
    * ½ tsp fennel seeds
    * ½ tsp sea salt

Line the bottom of your pan with tinfoil and place all the ingredients on top. Cover with a layer of foil and pierce about 8 or 9 holes, repeat with another layer of foil and holes. In a well ventilated area – near a window or on the BBQ place the pan on a high heat until it starts to smoke.

At this point place whatever it is you want to smoke on top for the required smoking time and cover with a lid or another layer of foil. Take off the heat and sit for 2-3 minutes before removing from pan.

For the Salad

Serves 6

    6 pigeon breasts
    200g fresh peeled broad beans
    6 diced rashers of smoked streaky bacon
    200g cherry compote
    2 handfuls of salad leaves
    2 tsp of quality stock

Method

Using the smoking technique described – smoke the pigeon breast over a high heat for 3 – 5 minutes until cooked on the outside and pink in the middle. Remove from the heat and sit in pan for 2-3 minutes. Remove and leave to rest before carving diagonally into thick slices.

In a pan sauté the bacon until golden, add the broad beans with the stock and reduce by half. Add the smoked cherry compote (see method below) and heat through.

To serve - place the bacon, bean and cherry compote mixture into a ring on plate - pressing down lightly, drizzle the pan juices around the edge before removing the ring, top off with some of the salad leaves and arrange the sliced pigeon breast on top.